There was a delay while the dhow captain went through the complicated process of loading his piece. Then a cannon report, a burst of flame, and another pot leg howled over Sebastian's head.
Through the dark hours before dawn the lively exchange of jeers and curses, of coconuts and pot legs continued.
Sebastian more than held his own for he scored four howls of pain and a yelp, while the dhow captain succeeded only in shooting away a great deal of his own standing rigging.
But as the light of the new day increased, so Sebastian's advantage waned. The Arab captain's shooting improved to such an extent that Sebastian spent most of his time crouching behind the sack of coconuts. Sebastian was nearly exhausted. His right arm and shoulder ached unmercifully, and he could hear the first stealthy advance of the Arab crew as they crept down towards his hide. In daylight they could surround him and use their numbers to drag him down.
While he rested for the final effort, Sebastian looked out at the morning. It was a red dawn, angry and beautiful through the swamp mists so the water glowed with a pink sheen and the mangroves stood very dark around the ship.
Something splashed farther up the channel, a water bird perhaps. Sebastian looked for it without interest, and heard it splash again and then again. He stirred and sat up a little straighter. The sound was too regular for that of a bird or a fish.
Then around the bend in the channel, from behind the wall of mangroves, driven on by urgent paddles, shot a dug-out canoe. Standing in the bow with a double-barrelled elephant gun under his arm and a clay pipe sticking out of his red face, was Flynn O'Flynn.
'What the hell's going on here?' he roared. 'Are you fighting a goddamned war? I've been waiting a week for you lotV
'Look out, Flynn!' Sebastian yelled a warning. 'That swine has got a gun!'
The Arab captain had jumped to his feet and was looking around uncertainly. Long ago he had regretted his impulse to rid himself of the Englishman and escape from this evil swamp, and now his misgivings were truly justified. Having committed himself, however, there was only one course open to him. He lifted the Jezail to his shoulder and aimed at O'Flynn in the canoe. The discharge blew a long grey spurt of powder from the Muzzle, and the pot leg lifted a burst of spray from the surface of the water beyond the canoe. The echoes of the shot were drowned by the bellow of O'Flynn's rifle. He fired without moving the pipe from his mouth and the narrow dug-out rocked dangerously with the recoil.
The heavy bullet picked up the Arab captain's scrawny body, his robe fluttered like a piece of old paper and his turban flew from his head and unwound in mid-air as he was flung clear of the rail to drop with a tall splash alongside.
He floated face down, trapped air ballooning his robe about him and then he drifted away slowly on the sluggish Current.
His crew, stunned and silent, stood by the rail and watched him depart.
Dismissing the neat execution as though it had never happened, O'Flynn, glared up at Sebastian and roared, 'You're a week late. I haven't been able to do a goddamned thing until you got here. Now let's get the flag up and start doing some workV
The formal annexation of Flynn O'Flynn's island took place in the relative cool of the following morning. It had taken some hours for Flynn to convince Sebastian of the necessity of occupying the island for the British crown, and he succeeded only by casting Sebastian in the role of empire builder. He made some flattering comparisons between Clive of India and Sebastian Oldsmith, of Liverpool.
The next problem was the choice of a name. This stirred up a little Anglo-American enmity, with Flynn O'Flynn campaigning aggressively for 'New Boston'. Sebastian was horrified, his patriotic ardour burned brightly.
'Now hold on a jiffy, old chap,' he protested.
'What's wrong with it? You just tell me what's wrong with id'
'Well, first of all this is going to be one of His Britannic Majesty's possessions, you know.'
'New Boston,' O'Flynn repeated. 'That sounds good.
That sounds real good.'
Sebastian shuddered. 'I think it would be well, not quite suitable. I mean, Boston was the place where they had that tea thing, you know.'
The argument raged more savagely as Flynn lowered the level in the gin bottle, until finally Sebastian stood up from the carpet on the floor of the dhow cabin, his eyes blazing with patriotic outrage. 'If you would care to step outside, sir,' he enunciated with care as he stood over the older man, 'we can settle this matter.' The dignity of the challenge was spoiled by the low roof of the cabin which made it necessary for Sebastian to stoop.
, I'd eat you without spitting out the bones.'
'That, sir, is your opinion. But I must warn you I was highly thought of in the light heavyweight division.'
'Oh, goddamn it.' Flynn shook his head wearily and capitulated. 'What difference does it make what we call the mother-loving place. Sit down, for God's sake. Here! Let's drink to whatever you want to call it.'
Sebastian sat on the carpet and accepted the mug that Flynn handed him. 'We shall call it-' he paused dramatically, 'we shall call it New Liverpool,' and he lifted the mug.
'You know, said Flynn, 'for a limey, you aren't a bad guy,' and the rest of the night was devoted to celebrating the birth of the new colony.
In the dawn the empire builders were paddled ashore in the dug-out by two of Flynn's gun-bearers.
The canoe ran aground on the narrow muddy beach of New Liverpool, and the sudden halt threw both of them off-balance. They collapsed gently together on to the floor of the dug-out, and had to be assisted ashore by the paddlers.
Sebastian was formally dressed for the occasion but had buttoned his waistcoat awry and he kept tugging at it as he peered about him.
Now at high tide, New Liverpool was about a thousand yards long and half as broad. At the highest point it rose not more than ten feet above the level of the Rufiji river.
Fifteen miles from the mouth the water was only slightly tainted with salt and the mangrove trees had thinned out and given way to tall matted elephant grass and slender bottle palms.
Flynn's gun-bearers and porters had cleared a small opening above the beach, and had erected a dozen grass huts around one of the palm trees. It was a dead palm, its crown leaves long gone, and Flynn pointed an unsteady finger at it.
'Flag pole,' he said indistinctly, took Sebastian's elbow and led him towards it.
Tugging at his waistcoat with one hand and clutching the bundled Union Jack that Flynn had provided in the other, Sebastian felt a surge of emotion within him as he looked up at the slender column of the palm tree.
'Leave me,' he mumbled and shook off Flynn's guiding hand. 'We got to do this right. Solemn occasion very solemn.'
'Have a drink.' Flynn offered him the gin bottle, and when Sebastian waved it away, he lifted it to his own lips.
'Shouldn't drink on parade.' Sebastian frowned at him.
'Bad form.'
Flynn coughed at the vicious sting of the liquor and smote himself on the chest with his free hand.
'Should draw the men up in a hollow square,' Sebastian went on. 'Ready to salute the flag.'
'Jesus, man, get on with it,' grumbled Flynn.
'Got to do it right.'
'Oh, hell,' Flynn shrugged with resignation, then issued a string of orders in Swahili.
Puzzled and amused, Flynn's fifteen retainers gathered in a ragged circle about the flag pole. They were a curious band, gathered from half a dozen tribes, dressed in an assortment of cast-off Western clothing, half of them armed with ancient double-barrelled elephant rifles from which Flynn had carefully filed the serial numbers so they could never be traced back to him.
'Fine body of men,' Sebastian beamed at them in alcoholic goodwill, unconsciously using the words of a Brigadier who had inspected Sebastian's cadet parade at Rugby.
'Let's get this show on the road,' Flynn suggested.
'My friends,' Sebastian obliged, 'we are gathered here today...' It was a longish speech but Flynn weathered it by nipping away quietly at the gin bottle, and at last Sebastian ended with his voice ringing and tears of great emotion prickling his eyelids, In the sight of God and man, I hereby declare this island part of the glorious Empire of His Majesty, George V, King of England, Emperor of India, Protector of the Faith...' His voice wavered as he tried to remember the correct form, and he ended lamely, and all that sort of thing.'
A silence fell on the assembly and Sebastian fidgeted with embarrassment. 'What do I do now?' he enquired of Flynn O'Flynn in a stage whisper.
'Get that goddamned flag up.'
'Ah, the flag!' Sebastian exclaimed with relief, and then uncertainly, 'How?'
Flynn considered this at length. 'I guess you have to climb up the palm tree.'
With shrill cries of encouragement from the gun-bearers, and with Flynn shoving and cursing from below, the Governor of New Liverpool managed to scale the flag pole to a height of about fifteen feet. There he secured the flag and descended
